Menu

Prototype Five Moons RPG Character Sheet (Warrior)

Here is a link to a prototype character sheet statted out with a 1st-level human warrior named Akiko.

Keep in mind that in this game, a 1st-level character is basically an apprentice, a much lower power (and competence) level than a 1st-level D&D or PF character. And keep in mind that there will be a back side to the character sheet with room for gear, treasure, notes, and so on, so if you don’t see something on here, don’t freak out. 🙂

Key things to notice on the character sheet/writeup are…

Ability Scores

There are five of them: Con, Dex, Int, Psy, Str.

Wis and Cha are replaced by Psyche (Psy), representing the power of the character’s soul and spirit, incorporating the conscious and subconscious mind. As opposed to a character’s intellectual power (Int), Psy is the character’s intuition (Wis) and force of personality (Cha). Priestly characters, psychics, and sorcerer-type spellcasters uses Psy as their caster stat; wizards and other scholarly characters use Int as their caster stat.

The ability scores are in alphabetical order, instead of the old-school arbitrary S I W D Cn Ch, or the new-school “physical first, then mental, but still arbitrary within those categories” S D Cn I W Ch.

Boosts

In addition to the box for the 5 default boosts per day, there are boxes for additional boosts that only affect martial abilities, skills, or spells (there are higher-level class abilities that grant boosts that can only be used for certain effects, such as a wizard ability that gives 1 extra boost per day that can only be used to augment spells).

Piecemeal Armor

This is a default option in the game, although you can purchase pre-built complete sets of armor instead of building up armor piecemeal.

Resists

What were formerly known as “saving throws” are called “resist rolls” or “resists” in Five Moons RPG. Why? Because “throw” isn’t used in any other way in the game, and although making a “saving throw” is at attempt to “save” your character, most effects have at least a partial effect, so the roll isn’t really “saving” you. You’re actually trying to resist an incoming effect, so they’re called “resist rolls.” I like terminology that makes sense, without adhering to a 30-year-old precedent inherited from a wargame.

Resolve

Resolve is a new game stat. It’s like Health, but against mental attacks. But it’s not just a do-mental-damage-until-Resolve-hits-zero, it can be used for other aspects of the game (such as social combat, or overcoming an ongoing mental effect).

Skills

The number of skills is much smaller than in D&D or PF. Some characters also get more skill points at each level (in this version, the warrior gets 3 + INT skill points at each level, plus 3 additional skill points at 1st level).

Special Abilities

Notice that even though Akiko is a warrior, she has a non-mundane ability: Energy Weapons adds cold damage to all of her her weapon attacks. In Five Moons RPG, just because you’re a martial character doesn’t mean you can’t do things that are impossible for Earth humans, like channeling freezing cold through your weapons.

There’s other stuff on the character sheet I haven’t called out (like why the Armor stat starts at 5 instead of 10, why she has a +6 Weapon Attack Bonus even though she’s only 1st-level, what a Spell Attack Bonus is, and so on). I’ll be talking about these concepts in more detail in future blog posts; for now, this should get some ideas churning.

Update October 10, 2014: I’ve posted a followup blog answering some questions about this prototype character sheet and the warrior stats on it.

39 thoughts on “Prototype Five Moons RPG Character Sheet (Warrior)”

Looks great! When you begin talking about some of the other new & interesting aspects of this character sheet, can you please either link this particular character sheet OR an updated sheet? I can’t wait to try this system out!

I know that when designing a new system, all sacred cows are eligible to be turned into steak, and maybe I missed this in one of the other blog posts, but out of curiousity, why the dropping/consolidation of Charisma?

CHA has long been the redheaded stepchild of the various iterations of the game. If it’s not a primary stat for your character, it’s a dump stat. Unlike all other stats, it also represents something completely arbitrary according to race or culture (appearance)–an 18 CHA character is considered “attractive” to dwarves, elves, orcs, humans, halflings, aboleths, angels, demons, and lizardfolk.
By dumping CHA and folding it and WIS into PSY, I get rid of a dump stat, consolidate internal-presence and external-presence into one stat, and lose the weirdness of a universal beauty standard.
Not coincidentally, it means there are five stats instead of six, and five is a recurring theme in this game. 😉

Nice! This kind of skill design appeals to me because it helps avoid some of the awkwardness of granular skills while also allowing room for specialization — in a way, getting the benefits of both broad and granular skills.

I also have a habit of wanting to make character concepts centered around channeling magic/spells through weapons, partially because you get very different flavor depending on the combination of weapon and spell used, giving an interesting way to reflect the character’s personality. A guy that calls lightning with the strike of a hammer is very different from an archer infecting where his arrow lands with monstrous tentacles who differs from a fortune teller that throws cards imbued with a curse spell. Seeing Energy Weapons on a martial makes me excited to see what other abilities the game will have.

Aw! yeah! I’ve been waiting all weekend for this, but fair enough it took longer than anticipated.

NOW, my Observations:

Looks like 5 HP/Level a static common value, probably for all classes, where big “Brute” monsters Might have 10 HP/level.

As obvious, Warriors have much less Resolve, which like the podcast, gives impression warriors suck at Social vs. Wizard (lame if so).

For Skills, makes me wonder if # of ranks can put into a skill is equal to level, so 1st =1 as put there, 25th=25th, and if these are all the skills in 5 Moons.

For the Attack bonus, seems as virtue of being the [Martial] archetype class, they get a +5-6 bonus to attack rolls (probably where +6 comes from, or +6 as +1str for +7 Sword). Which, may mean apprentice PC can 100% commoners, and/or possibly those pesky rats & housecasts. I fear the big meaningful bonus may encourage PC’s to stick to stereotype, as you will lack the meaningful bonus in whatever that Archetype does.

For Resist Rolls, I’m guessing single save archtypes pack the +3, while multiples will be more like +1 (Good Fort/Will +1). Otherwise, I’m guessing it may have a progression similar to 3rd editions (which was like Good +1/2 lv +2, Bad= 1/3 level).

Since Half of her abilities have been revealed in a preview prior, do you think we could see what you have written up for “Energy Weapons (Cold), and Power Attack” respectively? (Mostly the former, the latter was given a write-up somewhat)

Well, a strong part of the fun is figuring these things out, NOT doing that wouldn’t as interesting, and can aid in me understanding the system faster.

I’m going to try and see if I can do some projected Numbers based on the info here:
(Assuming every 5 lvs gives +1 to two stats, gain atk bonus = to level, so originally +5 class, +1 level, +1 Str got her +7 sword. I’m also guessing Saves are like 3rd’s, but slightly faster, and [Cold] Weapons is level based in its damage)

Fun Question, could she fight the Stone Giant? She’s underequipped, underpowered (literally using same powers since 1st), Stone Giant himself numbers are “in flux”, and worst of all, she’s alone so the encounter is already stacked with her dying in mind.

Her AC is way too low, assuming some case where armor pieces are +4 at this point, bringing AC to 27, the Giant would only hit her on an 11+, and would take away easily 1/4 her HP (21 avg). She hits em on a 2, so Power Attack would definitely be in order, but I’d have to take great liberties to guess what it does exactly (I’d like to assume a 2-1 ratio, or +2dam/-1atk). Which via boosting we can take full 10 point penalty, and ignore it, doing 1d8+33 (37 avg, or 27 avg if standard), capable of taking him out in 3 rounds, with possibly having 38 or so HP left.

If Power attack is standard (1-1 ratio), it would take 4 rounds on average, and if average holds, would have 17-38HP left (based on 45%? accuracy ration on Stone Giant’s part). To Those wondering, Power Attack was previewed as follows:

Power Attack: Take a –X penalty to your attack roll to add +Y to your damage roll. Boost: This attack does not have the –X attack roll penalty. Boost: This attack deals an additional +Z damage.

WHAT IF we decided to fight that Stone Giant now? Assuming the AC mentioned above, it’d at least have 45% of hitting, with our 1d8+31 (35avg), we could easily Power attack for 1d8+56 (60 avg) to no penalty or 1d8 +47 boostless (51 avg). Easily taking it out in two rounds, with possibly getting hit once (if AC stays the same) having 254HP left.

So that’s the end of that, I know I’m making quite a bit of assumptions here, and I don’t expect it to be that accurate, but what I could decipher, I think might be interesting to see for everyone else’s reference f nothing else. It was kinda cool to see that a 10th level Fighter could possibly Solo a Stone Giant on its own, and I think that notion is rather empowering (even if it was just a boring compare numbers fight due to underleveled gear, feats, and Abilities).

Now that I’ve got my Observations out of the way, I’m going to respond to the rest of what was posted.

Putting aside the “Theme of 5” in this game, what is the justification for CON as a stat? Since its existence has always been plagued as the “survival” stat, I wonder if it’ll have an independent use, where someone could viably play a “CON character”. Otherwise, I’m glad you did away with Charisma, for so many reasons, that was a GREAT decision to make there, so huzzah!

Power source specific slotted Boosts sounds interesting, so while ye in essence could have 7/day, but split between 5/day, 1 martial, 1 Skill, or some such. I do wonder if the proposed “Boost feat” option will just add to the pool, or will be forced into Martial/Skill/Spell respectively.

Piecemeal armor…I’m not sure on this one, only things off-hand I can think of is having to do multiple small addition steps like that seems odd (though option for pre-built suits helps).

For Resolve, I can tell “social combat” will be quite literal, as you had indicated in your podcast interview. I can see you want the idea of Social PC’s being weak in combat, while “Tougher” in Social Combat, though I’m not sure we want to encourage Fighters being inferior in Social Combat. I know there’s going to be support for Social Combat for them, their “Warlord/Marshall” Analogue, and possibly be more “Glass Cannons” in the Social Combat.

And keep in mind that there will be a back side to the character sheet with room for gear, treasure, notes, and so on, ”
I’d actually be interested in seeing that as well, is that in a presentable format in any way? Also I know you said it’ll be more professionally done when it comes out (13 weapon spaces?!), but how prone to change do you think it’ll be upon release?

I’ll second the quizzicism about Constitution. In other D&D games, all Constitution brings to the table is a tradeoff between having a cool character and being able to keep it. And that’s not particularly exciting.

Because Con *is* a stat. Some people are more tougher than others, and not just based on level. Some people want to play a sickly wizard instead of a peak-of-health wizard. Some people want to play Elric.

And if you choose to play someone who’s sickly, that’s not just a flavor choice, in the same way that playing someone who is strong, intelligent, or agile isn’t a flavor choice. There are game mechanics consequences for all of those things.

To some people it is.
Strength and Con aren’t the same thing. A cockroach has a high Con, but a low Str. My wife is physically strong (she was in the military, trained with the police, and knows kung fu), but gets sick easily. Alexander Godunov’s character in Die Hard wasn’t incredibly strong, but he shrugged off an incredible amount of punishment. Boris the Bullet-Dodger from the movie Snatch wasn’t strong or muscular (in fact, he was kinda old at the time the movie was released, age 56) but was pretty near unkillable.
Strength and Con aren’t the same thing.

No, they’re not the same thing, but then, neither are Charisma and Wisdom. Or Dexterity, Reflexes, and Speed. You are free to divide and combine them to get a set that makes for interesting and fun character building decisions.

Con is usually associated with hit points and saves/resists. This is probably why it was kept in. Otherwise you’d need a completely new mechanic for drowning, sickness, fatigue, etc. (e.g., something race- and/or class-dependent).

“To some people it is.”
To whom, that matters at the low levels of the game, such a detail is minor in Heroic Fantasy by mid level and higher. While I can’t speak for “Snatch” & Elric I can say those are all low level examples, and thusly in a level-based game, those concepts will cease to be relevant (much like the limited Martial Artist in your example you made once). Otherwise, they are rather minority characters to the majority of the fantasy strongmen people want to play (which I’d rather support more of those majority archetypes, than a paltry single few characters).

Also since you have stats small and minor as they are, CON itself seems to only serve as the survival stat and will end up with more “frail” Fighters for when they want to be more than just “tough & strong” (because not being tough means their BA-ness is diminished). As I had mentioned above, I had wondered if it would have a use to stand on its own, opposed to being that survival stat that sticks out like a thorn.

“Strength and Con aren’t the same thing.”
In lot of sources, lot of other games, they sure are, even Wasteland 2 knows they overlap strongly (never see those w/super strength not “also” be super tough, that aren’t in the minority).

I know it wasn’t under your quotes but I’ll address it first: (By Potential) “Con is usually associated with hit points and saves/resists. This is probably why it was kept in. Otherwise you’d need a completely new mechanic for drowning, sickness, fatigue, etc. (e.g., something race- and/or class-dependent).”

Not at all, if you fold it into Strength, all those rules stay the same, save for the stat you’d reference instead.

“But not this game.”

Anyway, that response doesn’t really seem to regard what I had said, nor justifying CON as a separate stat. I made that example to show how even some “old school” like experiences are aware in modern design they’re quite similar. Apparently when I brought this up in the past, you mentioned you wanted to support “Tough Old Man” ** (coincides with my point about wanting low level tough guy concepts). Which pending what level(s) you fall those into, +1-10 HP as a separate stat isn’t going to make up that difference and thusly isn’t all that supported in reality of the ruleset. If they’re usually higher level, then its easily represented there by the increase in HP to level (and then they’re competent to boot).

You’ve also mentioned in that link there are tons of examples, though the main ones I recall are in minority to ones in Heroic Fantasy.

Lastly, will CON have an independent usage from the “survival stat” that justifies its existence, so that someone could viably play a “Constitution Character”? (Which would be someone who’d put +2 into CON, and have further character options in the form of Abilities, Feats, etc that support that)

6 hp sounds awfully fragile. Either 1st level enemies deal about 1-2 points of damage per hit, or Akiko is going to go down really fast.

The +1 to two stats really does have an underwhelming impact on a character.

I’m curious why she has three misc. +5 skill bonuses all paired with her +1 base stats. Seems like it’d be easier to just have +6 in the base column, and save misc for other stuff. I do like the idea of the only six skills with further specializations though. It’s a bit interesting to see how things are folded in.

Going with the Fate skill list:

Influence is Deceive, Provoke, and Rapport.

Knowledge is Lore and Contacts,

Manipulate covers Burglary, Crafts, and Drive.

Move covers Athletics.

Sense has Notice and Investigate.

Sneak is Stealth.

One thing that seems missing is a skill for raw feats of strength, which with the low stat mods, you kind of really need.

I’d like to see just what the abilities did, but I suppose that’s for a second sheet.

“6 hp sounds awfully fragile. ”
I agree to the fragility of things, though I figured since he wants to support “peasant-fantasy” type stories for those who want it, then they want it to be fragile like that. Though I find it concerning that we’re repeating the history of “Killer house cats”, opposed to starting PC’s at a slightly elevated level, so that you could then include the rats/cats/bats/crabs & so forth, without exploding PCs.

“The +1 to two stats really does have an underwhelming impact on a character.”

I agree, I would’ve very much preferred back in Ability Scores post, of making the stats more meaningful, taking an idea that took the flavor into account (what I’m referring to I’ll link below).

“One thing that seems missing is a skill for raw feats of strength,”
Easily “Move” or Athletics in that case then, I’d prefer it not get its own skill. Even in FATE, there was something like that in the game, or otherwise the two skills were similar enough in nature to each other.

{6 hp sounds awfully fragile. Either 1st level enemies deal about 1-2 points of damage per hit, or Akiko is going to go down really fast.}

Remember that level 1 characters in Five Moons RPG are basically apprentices or untrained amateurs; they’re barely above a commoner in their skill and durability. A typical fully-trained character (D&D equivalent of level 1) is a level 3 character in Five Moons.

That said, I do want to play with the health values for level 1 and 2 characters, and I don’t want them to be TOO fragile.

{I’m curious why she has three misc. +5 skill bonuses all paired with her +1 base stats. Seems like it’d be easier to just have +6 in the base column, and save misc for other stuff.}

Every class skeleton grants bonuses to some skills (the equivalent of class skills in D&D/PF). I’m still fiddling with the idea (I want characters to be able to select their own class skills, but I gotta work out all the “subskills” first before I decide how many class skills each gets).

Currently, yes, but only because I’ve consolidated many of the skills, and you’ll be able to specialize within those skills, like how Akiko has a bonus on climbing. Move = Acrobatics, Climb, Swim, and anything requiring raw strength (like breaking and lifting). Rather than requiring people to spend points in three skills that reflect similar things (the ability to move your body in an efficient and coordinated way), the skills are squished together.

Keep in mind that it’s simpler to look up a Climb stat when asked to make a Climb check than it is to look up your Move and then pore through all of your specializations in case one of them applies to the current situation.

Even if it does make the character sheet appear more complicated on first glance.

I am not sure I agree with you molovakinus. Players typically know their characters and their bonuses. If I make a character who’s good at climbing, then when I try to climb and the GM asks for a Move check, I know I have a bonus on climbing. If I make a character who could care less about climbing, I most likely do not have a climb bonus, and thus can just make the Move check.

I understand, but I’m actually with molovakinus that “it’s simpler to look up a Climb stat when asked to make a Climb check than it is to look up your Move and then pore through all of your specializations in case one of them applies to the current situation.”

Pathfinder giving Haflings +2 to perception instead of +2 to perception when using perception on Listen checks is a great example of this. This is also one of the things that makes the Pathfinder ranger hard to play. If you play a high level ranger with lot of different bonuses to skills due to Favored terrains and favored enemies the combination of different bonuses to skills are endless.

I actually had to create a Microsoft Excel sheet to my friend when he played his archer ranger because of all the different bonuses to attacks, damage and skills. Printed out we had 4 pages just to be able to keep track of all the bonuses.

I don’t mind consolidation of more skills compared to Pathfinder, but the choice to first create base skills that branches out into specialized skills is not to my taste. It will make it more difficult to keep track of individual skills. It doesn’t really follow the KISS principal; it will make the character sheets messy. Also, as I said before, skills do give the character a lot of flavor.

Giving some creatures a specific bonus to a specialized part of a skill isn’t a problem. That even happens in PF and I’m Ok with that if it makes sense and if it is the exception not the rule (although in PF the exceptions are often not to my liking).

Let’s say you consolidate swim and climb and name it athletics. If you give aquatic creatures a bonus to swim, and give creatures that climb a bonus to climb then I good with that.

I actually really like the consolidation of skills with the specializations attached; It seems like the specializations will probably be determined by background or racial abilities, and the fact that those seem like they’ll have a larger impact looks good.

However, those Ability Scores seem so arbitrary, especially with the miniscule bonus (+1). But regardless of the bonus, the bigger issue is that they feel redundant. Take for example Intelligence; unless you’re an Int caster, this is basically useless for you except for the scholarly characters. However, wouldn’t it just be easier to use Knowledge skills, which is exactly what being a Scholar is about: knowing stuff. What if you want to be a warrior who is knowledgeable about weapons and warfare history, or be a charismatic knight to influencing your followers, why do you need Psy as an attribute when you have a skill that does the same? And you can even specialize for specific areas you have knowledge or influence. When you really think about it, ‘skills’ are an extension of ‘ability scores’, sort of a learned specialization of a natural ability. Not that it hasn’t been the same for previous versions of DnD, which is why Big Dumb Fighters and Weakling Wizards are so prevalent.

{f you want to be a warrior who is knowledgeable about weapons and warfare history, or be a charismatic knight to influencing your followers, why do you need Psy as an attribute when you have a skill that does the same?}

Ability scores represent natural ability. Skill ranks represent training. A low-Psy warrior who wants to be a leader is someone who isn’t naturally personable, but has studied and practiced (put ranks in Influence) how to motivate and manipulate people. A high-Psy warrior who wants to be a leader is someone who is naturally personable and hasn’t bothered to learn the nuances of improving that ability.

But if Psy and Skill Ranks add together to get your total bonus in a skill, the high-Psy warrior can choose to be a better leader than the low-Psy warrior can ever dream of being. Unless you do some really freaky anti-synergistic pricing to counteract that.

Attributtes: Thumps up. The merge makes sense and removes a potential dump stat. I also very much like that the bonus starts so small.
D&D 3-5 had a too large range (-1 to +5 or more already at the beginning) here and placed too much importance on attributes.

Resists: Up in the air so far. How will the resists grow with level ?. Different progressions like in 3E or even worse like in 5E (a mistake) or with one progression like in 4E (the sensible way) The main danger here is a widening gap at higher levels.

Piecemail Armor: I am a firm believer in the KISS principle. I am not sure if the benefits outweight the extra complexity here.

Skills: Again KISS principle. I very much like what I see here. Perhaps it might be possible to fold Initative and Attack bonuses in a combat skill.

Boosts: I would prefer a single pool for everything. The fewer book keeping the better.

Special Abbilities: I want to know more. But first impression looks good.

What about doing away with Armor Class as a default system altogether? I know that one of the things you are trying to do is create a system that moves away from Earth Physics and create a set of rules that’s fun, rather than necessarily tries to mimic how things work in real life.

But I actually liked some of the d20 Modern / Star Wars and I think Alternity way of doing things where armor was DR.

Armor doesn’t make you intrinsically harder to hit, but rather makes you more difficult to damage. Actually, the heavier the armor, the easier it is to actually hit you. I know the d20 combat system is an abstract system. It literally is not just a single swing back and forth, but in the chaos of battle there are openings, which is reflected in the chance “to hit.” This opening is illustrated by the attack roll. If you succeed, you exploit the opening, so to speak.

But what if you actually reduced the overall damage capability (no more of this crap where characters can do minimum of 100 damage per swing.) That was part of why the CR system never worked. Creatures at a certain CR were supposed to have a certain amount of hit points and a certain AC. But at a particular level, the first strike would almost always hit regardless the AC, and if the character is swinging for over 100 points of damage per swing, then 1/3rd or even 1/2 of the enemies hit points are gone. Fights would rarely run longer than 1 round.

So rather, leave the damage capability rather low. Light or Finesse weapons do 1 damage plus Strength (feats and boosts could allow you to bypass some armor DR), while one-handed weapons would do 2 or 3 depending on what you want them to do. While a 2-handed weapon would do 3 or 4 damage.

When you attack, you can call out a certain body part (or roll randomly for a body part). Based on the armor at that body part, it would have a particular DR. In some cases, it might have DR/Piercing or DR/Slashing or DR/Bludgeoning. If it has DR/– then that’s where the boosts come in.

So the Roll “to hit” is not going against their Armor Class, but their Defense score. The Defense score is helped by Dexterity and hindered by heavier armor pieces.

Armor as DR always sounded interesting to me, but I hear about it being difficult to implement, possibly due to subtraction. Perhaps armor could give temporary HP? Maybe there’s also a HP limit wherein pieces of armor get destroyed? (For example, if the piece takes twice its temporary HP value it’s destroyed.)